Federal prosecutors are accusing a Hampton man of spearheading a local drug distribution conspiracy in which a customer who thought he had bought heroin died after unwittingly injecting a more potent alternative into his veins.

NEWPORT NEWS — A man killed by Newport News police on July 4 had been shot in the head a few inches behind his left ear, according to the autopsy report conducted by the chief medical examiner's office in Norfolk.

Inside Newport News blog

The Blue Star Diner -- a Newport News icon at 9955 Warwick Blvd. that once was used as a set in a movie starring David Lynch and Isabella Rossellini -- is on a list of properties the city could demolish if significant improvements are not made soon.

An economics professor at Old Dominion University recently told me he suspected that German discount grocery stores Aldi and Lidl are planning Newport News because of the city's low personal income average.

NEWPORT NEWS — More than a dozen people, many in bright green T-shirts, busied themselves out in front of a house on Hampton Boulevard on Saturday afternoon. Men on ladders replaced part of a porch overhang that had been eaten away by carpenter ants while several others planted new bushes in the...

UPDATED: An attorney representing the family of a man shot dead earlier this month by Newport News police said the family is considering a federal lawsuit against the police department that would allow them access to information from the investigation.

Community news

A Civil War-period coat worn by a nurse — a woman from a prominent Mathews County family who some believe was the only woman to be commissioned as a captain in the Confederate Army — is among the nominees for Virginia's Top 10 Endangered Artifacts program.

NAVAL STATION NORFOLK — The Navy on Saturday commissioned the USS John Warner, adding a 12th Virginia-class submarine to the fleet and celebrating the legacy of its namesake, the retired senator who was hailed as a statesman.

For the past 16 years as host of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," Jon Stewart has walked a thin line that separates comedians from news analysts — generally staying in the hard-to-navigate spot in between.